The comic actor Maureen Lipman, known for her role as a proud Jewish
mother in a series of British Telecom adverts, has said the sharp rise in
antisemitic attacks in Britain may prompt her to leave the country.
Speaking to LBC after Holocaust memorial ceremonies took place across
the world, she said she has considered moving to the US or Israel because of an
increase in the number of attacks on Jews.
Lipman said: “When the going gets tough, the Jews get packing … it’s
crossed my mind that it’s time to have a look around for another place to live.
I’ve thought about going to New York, I’ve thought about going to Israel.”
She was asked about the fears of Jews in France in the wake of the
Charlie Hebdo shootings and the attack on a kosher supermarket. Lipman said it
was not just in France where Jews felt threatened.
She said: “When the economy dries up, then they turn on the usual
scapegoat: the usual suspect –the Jew. There is one school of thought that says
it’s because of Israeli policies in the West Bank, it isn’t. There’s been
antisemitism for the past 4,000 years.”
Lipman said the figures were “very, very depressing”.
She said her children and friends have become anxious, too. She said:
“There are 245,000 Jews in this country; I’ve been talking like this for a long
time, and my kids are very bored with me. But it is only in the last few months
that they have to begun to say: ‘Mum you may have something’.”
